The invention relates to glass bottle recycling apparatus, and more particularly to bottle breaking or crushing apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,088,274 Smith discloses a bottle crusher in which a glass bottle is crushed between a pair of jaws having pointed teeth. One of the jaws is stationary and the teeth thereon are arranged to form a craddle for supporting the bottle. The other jaw is movable toward the stationary jaw for crushing the bottle between the teeth of the two jaws.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,976,002 Gerlach discloses a can and bottle crusher including a hydraulically powered piston movable into a crushing chamber for crushing cans and bottles against a fixed end wall of the chamber.
A disadvantage of prior art bottle crushing apparatus is that these apparatus tend to pulverize bottles or break the bottles into fragments which are smaller than are desirable for conventional recycling processes.
Attention is directed to the following U.S. patents:
Vocaturo--U.S. Pat. No. 2,176,552--Oct. 17, 1939 PA0 Boedeker--U.S. Pat. No. 2,190,971--Feb. 20, 1940 PA0 Smith--U.S. Pat. No. 2,756,937--July 31, 1956 PA0 Hanley--U.S. Pat. No. 4,248,334--Feb. 3, 1981 PA0 Cahill--U.S. Pat. No. 4,285,426--Aug. 25, 1981